Forty per cent of the UK’s universities are now running deficits. Next year, it is expected that 75% will. How long is it before some begin to go bust as a result of UK government policy?
Soon, we hope, is the correct answer.
Forty per cent of the UK’s universities are now running deficits. Next year, it is expected that 75% will. How long is it before some begin to go bust as a result of UK government policy?
Soon, we hope, is the correct answer.
This government will bail out these indoctrination centres – one way or another.
Cut off funding, possibly exempting STEM. Remove restrictions on fees. Make the uni the lender of student loans. What’s that, only foreigners will be able to go? So what, our greatest days were when hardly anybody went.
@James…
Surely Sir, before criticising our host’s spelling it might be advantageous to learn a little grammar. Starting a paragraph without a capital is generally seen as ‘sloppy’ and finishing it with a duplicated word… ditto.
@ James G
Take lessons about punctuation, too.
Up until 1960 there were 21 universities in the United Kingdom; another 21 were founded in the 1960’s. We seemed to do pretty well in science, technology the arts and humanities with that many.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_date_of_foundation
How long is it before some begin to go bust
About five minutes after China decides we have nothing worth infiltrating remaining.
The day the
TriffidsSpambots came…All too true, Grikath!!!
Grik/BB
I sometimes use this as a quick way of viewing:
https://www.timworstall.com/comments/feed/
It’s surprising how much crap/ad links does get posted that presumably Richard has to deal with all the time. Mostly it’s on old threads rather than current ones, so no one ever sees them.
Looks like Murphy’s followers are fighting back – I think the Soviet and North Korean names used on Tax Research UK were better mind you.
My Machiavellian response would be to publish the list of universities that might go bust in the next 3 years and strenuously warn students not to start a degree course at any of those universities on the list due to the risk that the university will fail. The consequences being their degree course won’t be completed, and worse their student loan debt will still be payable in full. I like self fulfilling prophecy.
It would be fun to buy one. After the liquidator has fired all the staff of course. Just get the authorisation to award degrees, then run sound, commercial courses.
Yes, I know there’s Buckingham, but that’s only one.
Time permitting I’ll transcribe a full fisking of the broader post because even by his standards the level of disingenuity is awesome to behold.
Andyf – that’s one of his complaints – apparently a university going bust ‘would cause tremendous disruption’ for the students. He wants all fees abolished as well as there’s sufficient resources to fund all the establishments fully.
Government price controls screw providers – who knew?
Especially prices that haven’t been allowed to keep pace with inflation this last 7 years or so.
Whatever your views of Universities themselves, this is another example of crappy political interference fucking things up.
Some instutions ripe for a night of the long knives:
City, University of London
Sheffield University (maybe limited to its Management School)
Anglia Ruskin University
All engaged Murphy in academic posts.
I’d extend the list to any University which has one of Murphy’s books in its library and to any which employs a member of staff who has collaborated with Murphy (eg Warwick because of Sol Picciotto).
An old classmate of mine used to teach at a Poly. The ruling class of the Poly wanted it to become a university.
My pal explained: not one of them did a difficult degree, not one of them studied in a good university. They have no idea what they are talking about. They have no notion of how a university with clever students and staff works.
So, of course, they got their way.
I worked at a Poly early in my career. Even then (early 90s) it was populated with the sort of leftist idiots that found offence in everything.
Like female staff who didn’t want a security pass with names & pictures on them as someone might be able to tell they were women!
My college will not go bust. It has been financed for several hundred years – after an initial period when it was funded by an endowment from its founder – by donations from grateful alumni so it has a tradition of subsidising its current students from gifts from previous students. That could – inaccurately – be called a successful business plan: except there was never a plan to do so. In recent years after the college observed the damage done to its endowment and resrerves by the Wilson-Healey hyperinflation it has made periodic invitations to alumni to support worthy initiatives (including subsidising those students most in need of support – the latest sepecific appeal was for Ukrainian post-grads) which get are supported by a substantial minority (c.30%) of alumni in any one year and probably a majority in any one decade.
Some younger colleges (e.g. Harvard and Yale) have adopted a bastardisation of our not-plan.
One might hope that any decent university could follow Harvard and Yale by appealing to successful alumni. So any decent university which has equipped its graduates to pursue a successful career *should* survive the reduction in state aid. It is clear that many on this sitewill not mourn those not supported by their alumni/alumnae.
AS an academic, I might mildly disagree with some of the comments above, but only mildly.
On the whole I think that pruning the bottom 50% of UK universities would be doing (nearly) everyone a favour. Above that, we might look at departments/disciplines rather than the whole institution.
Before we did that, it might be good to resurrect the idea of polytechnics-places of vocational and professional training.
@BraveFart
I’d extend the list to any University which has one of Murphy’s books in its library
I’d disagree with that. It should be required reading.
The phrase that springs to mind is “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.“.
Students need the perspective of trying to peer out from deep within a hole in order to appreciate the giants work.
@ dearieme
The son of a friend studied at Hatfield Polytechnic when it still remembered being a training school for De Havilland: my younger son, a couple of decades later, did a degree course at the University of Hertfordshire. General view appears to be that it was better as a Poly. The name does not matter as much as the quality of teaching (and of the students but the best teachers will attract the best students so teachers are the most important).
Wut Andyf sez…. Murphy’s ….works… *should* be in a University library. In the “Silly Ideas that didn’t pan out” section.
My Uni had a large section of those books. All ideas and theories people tried, things that were Canon/Established Truth back-then, etc. in the fields of chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology.
Some of them were actual Antiques.
And they made it a point to keep 3 versions of the bible and 4 editions of the Origin of Species on the same shelf. For educational purposes, and to make a ….point… 😉
Spud’s output would do well in a section like that: “Economy 1-O-don’t” . Would sit well next to Mein Kampf for relavance.
A commenter says regarding Edinburgh uni “… is not referring to an actual deficit, but to the University not meeting its operational surplus targets” and includes a link. Instead of fessing he’s been fooled by an outlier in the data, again, Murphy claims surpluses are needed. What a c
@ john77, some years ago I was invited along to hear a speech by a new college Head, introducing herself. She made it clear she was going to reform admissions – so that no grandson of mine would be likely to get in. Then she asked us all to gift moolah. Remarkably unpersuasive.
It’s fascinating to think that the Uk’s next Prime Minister might not be a member of the Oxford mafia has provided all but three PM’s elected since 1945. Not even the university mafia. An honour only shared by the less than illustrious James Callaghan & John Major & a pair he’d struggle to underperform.
Maybe the UK has a brighter future. It could hardly have had a worst past.
It’s fascinating to think that the Uk’s next Prime Minister might not be a member of the Oxford mafia has provided all but three PM’s elected since 1945. Not even the university mafia. An honour only shared by the less than illustrious James Callaghan & John Major & a pair he’d struggle to underperform.
Maybe the UK has a brighter future. It could hardly have had a worst past.
Sorry about the duplication. The vagaries of Spanish internet connections. No doubt someone forgot to feed the pigeons.